Team Buono and Silva make first appearance on campaign trail in Willingboro

WILLINGBORO — A day after Barbara Buono, introduced Milly Silva, a Hispanic labor leader, as her running mate, the pair took their middle-class message to a senior center in Burlington County.

"This is a campaign for our seniors and veterans and for those who have been forgotten far too long," Buono , the Democratic candidate for governor, told a group gathered at Willingboro Senior Center today.

Buono announced the 42-year-old Silva would be her lieutenant governor candidate Monday in one of the most energetic events in a campaign that has been hobbled by inter-party strife and defections.

A state senator from Middlesex County, Buono is running an uphill battle against popular incumbent Gov. Chris Christie, 50, a Republican.

A longtime labor organizer, Silva is the vice president of SEIU 1199, which represents 7,000 nursing home workers in 74 facilities.

But her political resume is bare — having never held elected office and voting sporadically in recent elections — leading the Christie campaign to charge that Silva is uncommitted and unqualified to be governor.

She suggested the criticism was more about Silva a woman and noting that two former California governors — Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger — didn't have to answer those questions.

Silva conceded that her lack of voting in recent legislative and gubernatorial elections was "embarrassing," but said she worked hard as a union leader to get thousands of people to the polls.

"Milly Silva has been more responsible for getting people to the polls than Chris Christie ever has," Buono said.

Asked for his thoughts today on Silva's candidacy, Christie took a shot at her voting record.

"As to Ms. Silva, I never heard of her until this weekend so it's hard for me to have any judgment on her," he said. "In the context of the campaign, I just hope she is able to make time in her busy schedule this year to actually vote in the gubernatorial race unlike last time."

Silva spent most of her time telling the crowd how she was one of four children raised by a single mother in a public housing project in the Bronx, overcoming those obstacles and eventually graduating from Columbia University on a scholarship.

"Me and Barbara share the same values, we know about struggling," Silva said. "And Gov. Christie has taken us in the wrong direction ... he has walked away from the middle class, the working class."

Video: Milly Silva, Buono pick for Lt. Gov. calls Christie a "bully"State Sen. Barbara Buono, Democratic candidate for governor, announced labor leader Milly Silva as her running mate during a campaign rally in East Rutherford. In her first speech as a candidate, Silva blasts Gov. Chris Christie saying, "that's not a leader, that's a bully." (Video by Brian Donohue/The Star-Ledger)

Regina Thomas, the former secretary of state under Gov. James McGreevey, got the room full of supporters fired up in the minutes before Buono and Silva took to the microphone.

"They are real sisters," Thomas said. "I am hanging out with two sisters that are off the chain. I am from Kentucky; I know I'm country."

Thomas said the Buono-Silva ticket would produce "new results" and symbolize all the things Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. espoused.

Christie refused to address the claim that he ignores women's issues.

"They're going to be trying to say something everyday to try to get attention," he said. "Doesn't mean I have to respond to it. Folks who know me... know where I stand on those issues."